1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a personal computer apparatus, and more particularly to a telephone support method, storage medium and apparatus for providing a quality support service by tying up a support client with a telephone.
2. Description of the Related Arts
Traditionally, manufacturers of personal computers set up support centers for the registered users and counsel about various subjects on the telephone. In these support centers, by hearing current symptoms and information of software installed in the personal computer on the telephone from the personal computer users, solutions for errors and the like are provided. To this end, a large number of past error cases are stored in databases of the support centers, and persons in charge of support hear the environments of software and hardware of the personal computers on the telephone from the users and give answers about relevant solution by finding it from the large number of past error cases. On the other hand, a support system is also utilized such that the users ask the support center questions using such as a web bulletin board function and a mail function of a computer network-and that persons in charge of the support center give answers to the users. (See, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Pub. Nos. 2001-338095 and 2001-195497)
However, in such a conventional support system using telephones for inquiry, since the number of inquiries from the users increases drastically, even if a user calls the support center, the call ends up with a reception wait state in most cases, and it takes considerable time to be connected with a person in charge of reception in the center. If this situation is repeated many times, the user as a result has to give up on utilizing the support center, and since user's expectation goes disappointed, a problem is posed that this consequently leads to mistrust about the manufacturer.
Furthermore, since reception in the center is performed by automatic voice responses and responds to the user by voice guidance such as “telephone lines are very busy now, please wait for a while” or “telephone lines are very busy now, please call again after awhile”, a user does not know about how long the user has to wait or whether the user will be connected or not when the user calls again after awhile, so it cannot be said that appropriate response is performed in this situation.